paul_marcianofandomcom-20200215-history
Jabo phonology
Tone As analyzed by Sapir, Jabo was represented as possessing four phonemically distinct pitch levels (or registers),Not to be confused with social speech "registers." independent of phonation type or supraglottal articulation. Furthermore, mono-moraic (short syllable) glides from any register to any other register were phonotactically possible. This meant that there could possibly be sixteen distinct, segmentally-identical short monosyllables with significative pitch contours—more if long syllables were admitted. The not-uncommon word types (CVV) and CVCV could potentially have 256 possible prosodic contours, each with a different dictionary meaning for the same three or four segments. Sapir devised a system of "tone letters" for specifying tone, but they are inconvenient to typeset and not included in the Unicode inventory. The common convention for Kru languages is to mark tone with subscript or superscript tone numbers following the vowel, with 1 denoting the highest register. They may also be transcribed in the IPA with tone letters or diacritics. The default tone of the language, in Jabo tone 2, is generally left unmarked in a diacritic system. As an example, take the word "Jabo people", which is tone 2. For literacy purposes some system of diacritics would likely be preferable. Falling contour tones (parentheses) are very rare. Where they occur, they seem to be in imitation of other languages or dialects. Vowels The vowels marked with a subscript dot are said to be "dark" or "turbid". This is usually understood as being due to an articulation with pharyngealSince the "emphatic" consonants in languages such as Arabic may also be described as pharyngealized, it would be easy to misinterpret the use of the term "emphatic" by Sapir for the Jabo consonants which have breathy voice. In Jabo "dark" and "emphatic" are apparently unrelated, although the possibility remains. constriction. Advanced tongue root position or faucalization may also be involved. This last possibility may make it simpler to rationalize the apparent markedness of the extreme vowels and , which are said always to be "turbid". Nasalized versions of , and were reported, but it is doubtful whether they have phonemic status. Since the articulations involved are probably to a degree mutually exclusive (velic and pharyngeal), and since they seem to contribute similar auditory components (nasalization and "turbidity"), they are more likely to be allophones resulting from assimilation. Sapir was an excellent phonetician, so his transcriptions may be narrowly accurate, whatever their phonological implication. In the case of Herzog or Blooah, one suspects that there may have been a normalization attempt by the transcriber. This nonetheless gives an appearance of vowel harmony to Jabo phonology. Syllabic nasals and also occur. Related to this is a phenomenon of prenasalization, termed "anacrusis" by Sapir by analogy with the metrical term. It is probably best accounted for systematically by an underlying syllabic nasal, since it occurs with some approximants, as well as with voiced plosives. Consonants The forms enclosed in brackets show the orthography used by Sapir/Herzog; other forms are the same. Segments and probably have only allophonic status. Word initial occurs only in loans from English. The fronted or "dental" nasal occurs in only a single word, but that word meaning "possessive" is very common. Consonants here called "breathy" are those termed "emphatic" by Sapir. The plosives are here marked with a superscript hooked h ( ), while the continuants are marked with a subscript diaeresis. The contrastive use of this feature defines a major isogloss separating Jabo from Glebo.Hasselbring & Johnson, p. 52. References External links * Category:Language phonologies Category:Language orthographies